More On Obama’s Jobs Plan

The first concern, of course, is it a real plan or just another speech? That question is still up in the air even the day before the presentation.

We’ve have enough of speeches. What we need are working solutions. Its time to deliver.

The great fear is that the President will push more of the same old things that haven’t worked. The previews on TV sure look like that is what he is about to do.

Mr. President, you’ve been talking about creating jobs and fixing the economy since before you became President. So far you’ve been a miserable failure. If you don’t know how to fix it by now, you never will.

We are gonna find out with this speech.

Oh… just so you know, Mr. President… a plan is a written document that can be submitted to the Congress and quickly tweaked to be made into a law.

Contract For America

Here is an example of a real plan from Republicans to learn from…

Back during the 1994 elections Republicans didn’t just promise “hope” and “change” and chant “Yes we can!” when they vied for control of the House of Representatives that year. They actually had a plan. It was called the Contract For America.

The reason I mention it now is because that contract was a REAL plan, not slogans or ill-thought out ideas thrown about in speeches. It contained a set of 10 actual written bills that Republicans promised to act on if they they became the majority.

They did win and they did act immediately, not two and a half years later.

Two Old Worn Out Friends

The top two items still mentioned that the President will propose are:

Extending unemployment benefits

Extending the payroll tax holiday

Both are touted as stimulus for the economy. Neither has proven to be.

The economy in the tank despite that we have had both of these things THIS YEAR. If they aren’t helping the economy this year its a lead pipe cinch they won’t work next year.

We’ve extended and extended unemployment benefits and we are still in the tank. it is NOT an economic stimulus. It IS a symptom of a broken economy.

We need something more and better than these two proposals.

More Stimulus – $300 Billion This Time

The newest leak says that Obama will propose $300 billion in new stimulus spending tomorrow.

We already tried $824 billion in stimulus spending with The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act already and that didn’t work. How much can only $300 billion do?

The problem with stimulus spending is that as soon as the money is gone so is the stimulus.

It is promised that the $300 billion spent will be balanced by $300 billion in cuts from somewhere else.

If that is done then it may be a good idea if the $300 billion is spent wisely, but if the cuts are another smoke-and-mirrors CBO-type cut spread over 10 years then it is not a good idea.

If Obama adds the money from the payroll tax holiday extension as part of his $300 billion in “cuts” that would be so wrong!

That isn’t a cut. Taxpayers would be funding Obama’s “cut” with their Social Security retirement money. No clear thinking individual would consider that a “cut” is any way shape or form.

Even if properly balanced with real cuts, the bottom line is that this $300 billion proposal is more of the same type of stimulus that has already failed.

We need something more and better than this from the President.

The Infrastructure Bank

Perhaps the only proposal to come out so far that might help is the creation of an infrastructure bank. It would be something called a GSE… a government sponsored enterprise.

GSE’s are public/private enterprises. This one would be used to fund building things to put people back to work.

The government already have a mechanism for funding large public infrastructure projects. The difference will be that profit making companies would be investing in the infrastructure bank to help fund all the new projects.

Here is the problem… Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were GSE’s. Mismanagement by them is what caused the Great Recession! They will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions through their mismanagement.

Creating another new GSE only sets us up for another disaster. Just like Fannie and Freddie taxpayers will be stuck for any losses the infrastructure bank accrues.

Conclusions

If the rumors are true then the President doesn’t have any new ideas to offer.

In fact, every one leaked so far have already proven ineffective or disastrous in just the last four years? They won’t work now either.

In the meantime, we continue to pill up a massive debt load that is dragging us down. The CBO says it will be at least $1.7 trillion more again this year, when interest payments on the national debt is included. That is just like each of the last two years.

If something is not done soon the whole country is going to sink into a sea of read ink!